Yuan Shikai Built a New Army, Reformed the Qing and Opposed the Boxer Rebellion
Yuan Tried to Learn from the Sino-Japanese War
Yuan Shikai had failed to see the first Sino-Japanese war coming. He resigned as Imperial Commissioner to Korea once it was clear it was lost to Japan. Yuan stayed and served in the army as a logistics officer for China during the war. Yuan saw the Japanese defeat the Chinese, even in battles where the Chinese outnumbered the invaders. He concluded that China’s failure to modernize its army was to blame. China’s urgent task was to train a modern army to defend China, Yuan believed.
Yuan had won a lot of praise and recommendations among Qing officials for his work in Korea. He was considered honest, hard working, bright and loyal.
He also was thoughtful. He sent a 13,000-word document to the emperor in 1895, expressing his thoughts on military reform.
He traced the events of the Taiping Rebellion, including the successes of the two provincial armies and decided that those armies were now dysfunctional. A new western style army should be created. Importantly, he wrote that German or other foreign instructors should be hired but operate under Qing control. Modern tools were needed, not only for weapons, but also for communication. Telephones and telescopes were essential. A navy was needed as well. He recommended that all military forces should be under centralized Chinese control.
He went further, “a thousand troops are easily gathered yet one good commander is hard to obtain.” He criticized Qing officials for lacking military knowledge and preferring fame and profit. Yuan Shikai recommended recruiting officers from military schools that would teach science, strategy, tactics and other courses. More military academies should be established and if possible, officers sent abroad to learn new skills.
He also recommended a new western style recruitment system. Age, height, weight and capability were all crucial in recruitment. Then would come ideological indoctrination, to turn the army into a loyal force.
The Qing court, including the emperor and empress dowager approved the plan and Yuan Shikai was hired as commander. He would become the father of China’s first modern army.
The base was selected by the Qing court. It was about twenty miles (or thirty kilometers) south of Tianjin. That was close to the capital. It also had already been a military base for the Anhui provincial army.
Before Yuan, Chinese armies’ largest units had been battalions. This limited coordination in large campaigns. Also, logistics had not been centralized. Yuan changed all that.
Yuan designed the military model to match the German system. At that time, in the 1890’s, the Germans were Europe’s leading land military power. They had soundly defeated both the Austrians and the French a couple of decades earlier under Otto von Bismarck. Yuan also hired German instructors but did not give them command. He ensured that the foreign instructors would be supervised by Yuan. He would make the final decision on performance evaluation and salary. He generally paid them very well, much more than Chinese officers were paid.
He ordered the most advanced German weapons and artillery pieces. China’s most senior diplomat in Germany found the Chinese weapons to be almost identical to the most up to date weapons found in the German military.
Yuan also paid attention to equipment. Military tents, telescopes, watches, telephones, kettles and emergency kits were all purchased from the west.
Yuan hired officers from the military academies, both in China and abroad. He also set up on base-military schools. There, cadets were trained and each specialized in one of artillery, infantry, cavalry or German.
Outstanding cadets, after two years, would be sent overseas for further training.
Soldiers were hired and had to be between 20 and 24 years old, capable of lifting 100 lbs., be able to march 10 kilometers in an hour, be healthy and have never smoked opium. Also, they had to be taller than 1.46 meters (or about 4 feet 9 inches). I guess that shows how short Chinese men were at that time. Today, the average Chinese man is almost 25 centimeters or one foot taller than that minimum set in the 1890s.
By 1899, the newly established army had recruited ten thousand men.
They drilled and staged mock battles. Officers then had to learn lessons after each exercise. His team translated foreign military books.
Yuan established rewards and punishments. Often, a minor punishment or reprimand could be imposed for failing to meet an assigned goal. But pardons for minor offences were also given to those who corrected their faults. Yuan was harsh on deserters and did have someone executed for stealing and selling weapons and equipment.
Yuan instituted indoctrination campaigns, to transform the soldiers into loyal fighters for the empire. He even wrote a song. He reminded his soldiers that foreign invasion would be national humiliation.
He was impeached in 1896, including for setting goals that were unachievable, enforcing absurd discipline and harassing the local community. Shikai prevented commercial exchanges between his army and the locals. He was trying to break with the past of trading between officers and peddlers. The investigators praised Shikai and he was promoted to provincial judicial superintendent, and remained responsible for training the army. While the force was small and untested in war, Yuan received praise from both Chinese officials and some foreign observers.
Yuan never hired relatives for the army. And in 1898, the empress dowager rewarded Yuan with 4000 taels of silver. He distributed it among the troops, who gave him thunderous applause. He earned their loyalty, but through public acts.
The new army was also a path for upward mobility. Most of his senior officers came from poor peasant families. He also timed drills to avoid the scorching midday sun. He drilled too. Once, it started raining and his aide-de-camp opened an umbrella for him. He refused it saying that all the soldiers and officers were in the rain and why shouldn’t he be too?
He insisted that the army treat the local population well and never harass or mistreat them, including the women. Only with the people’s support could the army be victorious, he said.
From this army of 10,000, there would be 4 Presidents of the Republic of China and thirty-four military provincial governors. Not all of them would follow the instructions Yuan had given them.
In a previous post, I mentioned Yuan Shikai’s role in opposing the violence by Kang Youwei’s gang during the 100 days of Reform was discussed. He showed loyalty to his commander and to the Empress Dowager, rather than to the Emperor and the reformers when they asked him to surround the Empress Dowager with his army.
Recently declassified and released sources from this period shed additional light on Shikai’s role before and during the 100 days of Reform. As you might imagine from his reforming tendencies with the army, he was open to reforms. For instance, he challenged the then conventional view that China was culturally superior to other nations. He thought China should stop being so vain and should interact more with foreigners to learn from them.
He wanted China to build a modern diplomatic corps and to include in the hiring, Chinese from Fujian and Guangdong provinces since they had the most experience interacting with foreigners.
He advocated updating the examination system to replace many old subjects and to include new subjects, like science, technology and military matters. He wanted railways and mines opened, as well as a new postal system. He wanted the tax system updated. He thought Chinese could learn from Western managers, but Yuan did not want to hire them. He believed they were too arrogant. He preferred to have Chinese travel and to learn from the west, but to have Chinese in charge of the businesses upon their return.
One way in which Yuan Shikai differed from Kang Youwei and his protege Liang was in implementation of reforms at the provincial level. Kang’s group wanted rapid, national reforms. It would be top down, based on edicts from the emperor and imposed on all people and all officials instantly.
Yuan instead recommended that two or three loyal and gifted governors be selected to emulate western ways and be given a timeline and not interfered with. Once reforms were achieved, successes could be catalogued. Other provinces could then use them as models, one after another. Yuan valued stability, controllability, accountability and analysis. Models that worked could then be expanded to other provinces. Yuan believed this approach would lead to less resistance and chaos than top-down edicts implementing massive changes.
Kang wanted stubborn officials removed, by force if necessary. Yuan suggested that conservative officials be bestowed with eminent honors and venerable tributes and pensions. By pushing old administrators peacefully and generously to the side, he believed more would be accomplished.
Yuan attended seminars every Saturday on reforms. But he also was close to the Manchu court. It seems that he had a foot in each of the reform and imperial camps. When the emperor promoted Yuan to Minister of the Court during the 100 Days of Reform, Yuan approached the conservative officials and told them he did not plan to accept the promotion because he was too unqualified and inexperienced. They insisted that he should take the appointment and he did accept it. But his diplomacy surely helped him in their eyes.
It is rumoured that the emperor hated Yuan after the coup. He is said to have written the characters of Yuan’s name on paper and then torn the paper into tiny shreds while cursing him. He once told his empress that Yuan had destroyed him. Whether Yuan is truly to blame for that is something debated by historians. Some say that his reporting of the plot on Cixi came after she had already launched her counterattack. But the emperor seems to have blamed Yuan.
In 1914, when he was President, Yuan Shikai did approve plans for a shrine to be built to the Six Gentlemen who were put on trial and killed following the coup. Funds for their families were paid during Yuan's presidency. He seems to have considered them martyrs.
Yuan’s relationship with the reforms and coups of 1898 are complicated and his feelings seem mixed. He was a reformer who sided with the Empress Dowager Cixi and the counter coup and he felt sympathy to those reformers tied to Kang Youwei who were executed.
In late 1899, Yuan was appointed acting governor of Shandong province and became full governor three months later. It was a tough assignment. That is the coastal province where Germany took the port of Qingdao a year and a half earlier and Britain had taken another port there. It was also where the Boxer Rebellion had already begun. So, Yuan was assigned to govern a province on the cutting edge of imperial penetration of China and in rebellion.
Unlike the Empress Dowager, Yuan Shikai was consistently hostile to the Boxers. He tirelessly worked to eradicate their rebellion. He believed the underlying issue was the foreign missionaries’ autonomy in local administration and justice. This was discussed in the episode with the Deep Dive into the Tianjin Riots in 1870. Chinese Christians could get exemptions from local Chinese decisions by appealing to western consuls in the foreign concessions. Those Chinese would get protection from those international Christians because of their claimed Christian faith. This caused resentment, both among the Boxer rebels, as well as with local administrators who resented their loss of control and authority.
Yuan believed the Boxers were bandits, causing havoc.
Yuan sought a two-pronged solution. The long-term one involved reconciling Christians and ordinary folks. He wanted to eliminate the double legal system and to seek justice. The short-term one was to eliminate the bandits and to restore social stability.
He promoted better treatment of Chinese Christians by reminding the Chinese that they were fellow citizens and Chinese too. He referred to missionaries as moralist tutors that had travelled to China and should be respected. But he also confiscated Church property until matters quieted down.
He tried to undermine Boxer support by showing them to be dishonest bandits. The Boxers said they were impervious to bullets and staged demonstrations to make it appear that they could not die by bullets (through a sort of magic trick.) Yuan himself broke the magic spell by pulling out his gun, shooting the Boxer on stage and inviting the man to rise again. Thus, he showed that they were mortal after all, in spite of the “demonstrations.”
Yuan used his army to occupy strategic spots like mountain passes, intersections etc. to sever Boxer movements. They interrogated passersby, collected information, and arrested suspicious people. All of this helped make life more difficult for the rebels.
Ordinary members of the Boxers were set free once arrested if they promised to never rejoin. But repeat arrests were treated more harshly. The leaders were killed.
He engaged local elites to be responsible for the local safety. A clan head or village head would be responsible for the safety of that clan or village. If they failed to report a Boxer among them or sheltered one, they would be punished.
He saw that the old Green standard army was dysfunctional. He removed unfit elements and incorporated the then remaining soldiers into twenty new battalions and called them the Vanguard of the Right Army.
He also recognized that famine was a contributing factor. Relief had expired before he came to the province. He convinced the court to extend it for another year, which helped the people to eat and prepare for future harvests.
When levies breached during spring flooding, Yuan would often ride there to personally supervise repairs and to ensure that the breaches were quickly repaired.
As for the foreigners, one early thing that Yuan did was to position his troops to prevent the Germans from expanding their territory of influence. He contained the Germans without starting a fight.
He had spies monitor the Germans. When they brought in 400 more troops, he brought in a further 3200 soldiers from another province.
He carefully read the treaties to understand them. Germany had the right to build a railway in Shandong. Locals were afraid of flooding and destroyed part of the line. Yuan sent troops to protect the railway but also made sure the villagers knew he would protect them in case of flooding. He arrested the leaders of the riot. The situation calmed.
But he was no imperial lackey. Further contracts needed to be signed for the railway’s operations. He inserted clauses to protect Chinese farmers, public facilities and local tombs. In case of damages, locals were to be compensated by the railway. Only the Chinese would provide security (through troops) outside of the foreign concessions. And China had a right to repurchase the railway after negotiations. It was these details that Yuan attended to that made the best of the treaties imposed on China. The Germans found they had lost most of the advantages they had seized and recent scholars thought this approach helped China regain part of her national interest.
The foreign concession boundaries were unclear when he came to power. Yuan had markers established and limited foreign jurisdiction as much as he could. He insisted that the foreigners had no powers outside of the foreign concessions. And even within the concessions, unless the dispute was with a foreigner, Yuan claimed that the western powers had no jurisdiction over a dispute between two Chinese people.
Yuan used troops to escort foreigners travelling out of Shandong during the Boxer rebellion. He ensured their safety and not one foreigner lost their life in Shandong during the Boxer rebellion.
He also communicated both with the foreigners and with Earl Li Hongzhang during the Boxer rebellion to ensure that the invading foreign troops did not enter his province. He arranged for them to bypass Shandong and he had boundary markers established so that the foreign troops knew where to avoid.
Once the war was over, he ensured that normalcy quickly returned and the Germans were back in their concessions and continuing to build the railway.
Shandong became more peaceable during Yuan’s time as governor. Despite the Boxer Rebellion having started there, it was suppressed and never faced a foreign invasion. Shandong was among the most peaceful provinces by 1901.
More controversially, Yuan acted contrary to the instructions of the Qing Court during the Boxer Rebellion. They asked him to send troops to fight the foreign invaders. He did send them, but at such a snail’s pace they only approached Tianjin after it was lost.
Also, he sided with southern governors who established a non-aggression agreement with the foreigners in Shanghai. The governors would halt the spread of the Boxer Rebellion south and no fighting would occur in the Yangtze area.
But when the Emperor and Empress Dowager fled Beijing and eventually to Xian, Yuan was quick and effective at supplying them aid. He remitted funds and provisions to them. A Grand Councillor observed that Shandong was the first to send urgent needs and they all arrived appropriate to the imperial demands.
When the Boxers destroyed railways and telegraphs around Beijing, Yuan’s office was set up as mail room for imperial communication between the court and the provinces.
After the Boxer Rebellion, when the Qing Court unveiled new modernizing policies, Yuan was quick to take part. He ensured Shandong had China’s first provincial university. He also established elementary and middle schools. He saw German currency circulating in Shandong and acted. He purchased minting machinery and printing paper to maintain Chinese control over finance in his province.
In the two years before Yuan took over Shandong, they had experienced 4 governors. During his time, he stabilized the province and showed good judgement in making the best of a bad situation. Shandong went from being the trouble spot to being serene. The opposite was true for Zhili, between Tianjin and Beijing.
So, Yuan’s next assignment was to be governor general of Zhili province. Earl Li recommended him for that position as his own successor.
When Yuan took it over following the Boxer Rebellion and foreign invasion, the province was devastated. His role was Governor General of Zhili province and also Superintendent of Trade for the Northern Port, also called the Beiyang Minister.
He ordered his officials to read all of the foreign treaties and to understand them. Foreign armies were now allowed between the port of Tianjin and the capital. They had commandeered homes and land. Yuan ensured this was all documented in detail so that claims for return of the property and for rent could be made by Chinese diplomats.
Foreigners were not allowed to permanently own land outside of the foreign concessions. He heard of one sale by a local Manchu to a Russian bishop. He stepped in, made sure the bishop was reimbursed and punished 5 Chinese involved in the deal.
A rebellion broke out in 1902 over new taxes. Thousands joined it and they burned churches and murdered a missionary. Yuan quickly put it down and executed its leader.
But in areas that had suffered flooding last year, he was able to arrange the delay or cancellation of taxes in those areas. That wasn’t a one-time thing. He did the same in 1904 in other flood affected areas.
Yuan arranged for the emperor and Empress Dowager to return to Beijing from Xian and accompanied them on their return to Beijing in 1902.
One of the treaties prohibited Chinese troops within 10 kilometers of Tianjin. So, Yuan created China’s first modern police force there instead. This allowed Chinese police to replace the foreign officials that were in charge of Tianjin during and immediately following the Boxer Rebellion. He founded a police college, paid them well and created a hierarchy and promotion based on merit. It worked and became institutionalized.
He tried to get rid of bribery in government. He prohibited the practice where subordinates gave gifts to their superiors during the holiday season. He got rid of purely titular positions. In one extreme case, the Tianjin County went from having 3000 bookkeepers, runners, bailiffs and servants to only having 250. He also tried to increase pay for officials so that they would not require bribes.
He established a new school to train officials in modern administration. He increased supervision of officials and set up a system of rewards and punishments.
Yuan Shikai was one of the Qing officials who called for the abolition of the old examination system. He believed it was interfering with the growth of a modern school system. They were successful and it ended in 1905.
He built schools and set up a system we would recognize. It started with primary schools, then middle schools, secondary schools and universities at the top. Zhili became the top province for school assets. Yuan personally donated twenty thousand taels towards education, encouraged other local elites to follow him and used provincial taxes to fund education too. He created a study abroad program and hired those students upon their return.
An agricultural college was started. Modern agricultural techniques were taught. He had officials purchase modern farm equipment in Japan. He had trees planted.
He encouraged local elites to invest in new factories and soon the region was making paper, light bulbs, pipes, cement and growing tobacco.
He planned a new rail line and declined British and Russian capital. Instead, he found the money in China and hired a foreign trained Chinese returned student as chief engineer. It was completed in 1909.
In 1903, he started a campaign against the foot binding of females. He encouraged girls and women to attend school. He highlighted the importance of obstetrics and protected female servants who were often abused.
Yuan was an advocate for the constitutional reforms that the Qing started at the end of the empire. In 1907, Tianjin was the location of China’s first election when it elected its municipal assembly.
But Yuan is probably best remembered for his military role. One of his many jobs at this time was to spread military reforms throughout the country for the Qing. Next episode, we will discuss that and the military’s role in the 1911 Chinese Revolution. We’ll see how he gained the Presidency and why he lost support before his death in 1916.
Please join us again. Thanks for listening.
Thank you!
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